Is VR Still King Over Ultrawide Monitor With TrackIR?

I have both an Odyssey + and an Alienware 3440x1440 @120Hz curved 34 display. There's absolutely no doubt that VR is a lot more immersive, but I'm wondering if anyone has chosen their ultrawide monitor with TrackIR over VR because of the crisp clarity and better performance. Is the consensus once you go VR there's no going back to the monitor? Or do some people still prefer their monitor with TrackIR over their VR HMD for better clarity and performance?

Yes

It's personal, but yeah, no way going back to pancake for me. VR is king. :smartass:

yep, same here. No more pancake ever (for flight sims)

Depends entirely what you're after.

VR still has nowhere near the clarity, visibility, or performance and if you're in a plane that benefits a lot from those (anything with lots of sensor readouts or where you need a lot of zoom) then you will not be able to use it as fully in VR as on a high-resolution monitor. So if you do that a lot, then yes, you may very well find that VR isn't as good a choice.

Conversely, for some things — notably AAR and flying very close to the ground — the stereoscopic vision of VR will vastly outperform what a monitor can offer in terms of flight precision. Same thing here: if you do that a lot, pancake mode won't be as good a choice.

For my part, I only really use VR when flying helos and the less system-heavy planes (think F-5 and below) because in those, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

I flip back and forth all the time. When the limitations of one setup gets in my way, I switch to the other. The visuals in 4K are absolutely stunning. But the Rift S got the VR visuals up to a good enough that I can tolerate VR graphics in a lot more situations. The 1:1 tracking and scale of VR is hard to give up. But I still love the image quality of 4K, which I see via a 49 inch TV about 2 to 3 feet in front of my face. But as good as 4K looks, I still like to have antialiasing, which is only practical to a x2 level. I only get 40 fps with the Rift S, along with some ghosting of air threats, whereas I can have 60 fps with vsync on the 4K monitor.

When VR can give me the graphics quality I crave and smoothly maintain a high fps (80+), there will be very few situations where I would want/need to go back to a flat panel display.

Depends entirely what you're after.

 

VR still has nowhere near the clarity, visibility, or performance and if you're in a plane that benefits a lot from those (anything with lots of sensor readouts or where you need a lot of zoom) then you will not be able to use it as fully in VR as on a high-resolution monitor. So if you do that a lot, then yes, you may very well find that VR isn't as good a choice.

 

Conversely, for some things — notably AAR and flying very close to the ground — the stereoscopic vision of VR will vastly outperform what a monitor can offer in terms of flight precision. Same thing here: if you do that a lot, pancake mode won't be as good a choice.

 

For my part, I only really use VR when flying helos and the less system-heavy planes (think F-5 and below) because in those, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

I tell you what. HP Reverb is the VR HMD that I've been wanting. It's super clear and more importantly, runs very smooth. If I could add P5K+'s FOV, I'd be in heaven. But I decided the clarity of Reverb is worth more than the FoV of P5K+.

I received the HP reverb and thought that was going to switch my preference to vr. Nope, I still prefer track ir with 55 in 4k gaming tv. Looks better and much more comfortable to look around. Also enjoy being able to use clickable mfds, stream deck, keyboard, laptop w/ web gci for hoggit, or tti server messages, etc, etc. If you have the right setup with trackir, you have the superior way to play dcs. Don't waste your efforts thinking vr will be better.

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It depends on what you want ...

You want to be actually inside a plane, and enjoy flying ?

Or you want to be more lethal playing a video-game on a retina resolution "Window" ?

Looking at your 6 is not confortable in VR, but it's the same than in a plane ... it gives adtional inmersion.

I am balancing this dilemma myself currently. Got TrackIR and high resolution monitor and a Rift S. Rift S is exceptionally immersive, and general visual quality and frame rates are decent but reading moving maps and small MFD screens is still tricky... you still need to know what is on the MFD to understand which button to press. So not ideal.

Watching the HP Reverb and Steam Index to see how well they perform in comparison to the Rift S.

So I think VR is getting close to totally replacing big screens + TrackIR, but we are probably on the cusp but not quite there yet. As it stands right now, it is pretty close between both with pros and cons.

In the start I would have not recommended VR for combat. But that was before DCS 2.5.2 or something.

At one point in development when the hands started to work etc, the graphical clarity increased suddenly. You started to spot things more easily etc.

At that time I can only recommend VR, I wouldn't take any track ir system for it unless you need to be able look around and talk to your friends next to you in similar setups (flight club).

And I talk only about CV1 now, not even yet the 2019 HMD models.

For starters, I recommend Rift S, best bang on buck and features.

It is sad, as TrackIR has other features like playing ARMA with nicer head turning etc. But not anymore in DCS to have business.

The TrackIR was great 2016.... Not anymore since 2018...

I have not gamed on monitor since getting Rift in Jan 2017, and now enjoying the Rift S very much.

For me the immersion outweighs the resolution shortcomings.

Nothing comes close to 4k resolution for immersion, since you can literally see details as if you were actually in the cockpit.

Maybe the valve index will be the ultimate VR solution, and I'll find that answer soon.

I think I might be using the index for VR only games and using my 4k 144hz HDR gsync monitor for DCS though.

Nothing comes close to 4k resolution for immersion...

5K?

are you a predator or are you prey?

predators have a narrow FOV and stereoscopic overlap for depth perception so they can hit things that don't want to be hit.

prey has a wide fov and no depth perception because grass does not move and they need to see behind themselves for predators.

predators use stealth, strategy and tactics to overcome the preys advantage.

predator prey relationship.

so again, are you predator or prey?

5K?

They don't have 5k 144hz HDR yet.

They don't have 5k 144hz HDR yet.

True, but your original statement was:

Nothing comes close to 4k resolution for immersion, since you can literally see details as if you were actually in the cockpit.

It is really an easy choice. VR every time.

I'd never even consider getting a Glaucoma Simulator aka Ultrawide... I can't understand these even exist. Not using most of your natural FOV is just unnatural.

My 43" 4k monitor can't get me motion sick no matter how good it looks. :)

Since trying VR my TrackIR has not been used once. I like being in the plane and having the 1:1 tracking personally.

What's the VR experience like if you have reduced vision in one eye?

The only reason I can think of for now using a monitor is that instead of getting a zoom in VR, monitor users get a telescope.

VR is KING

VR is the future , and it's here now , and accessible to anyone .

I have a TrackIR sitting in a drawer collecting cobwebs now that I have the Rift S (sold the original Rift)

But I am desperately hoping for improvements and mass production of hand controllers that will still allow me to use my HOTAS in a more immersive way.

-=gos=-